What a tie does to an NFL bet
A regulation tie surviving overtime settles the moneyline as a push at most books, and any spread of exactly zero pushes with it.
There is no winner to pay, so the stake comes back. Three-way markets, where a tie is a priced outcome, settle it as a loss for both team prices instead.
The rule differs between a two-way price and a three-way one at the same operator, and both may appear on the same fixture.
Which is where it goes wrong. It is rare enough that the terms are never read, and the two market types are labelled with a single word between them.
What to do with it. Check whether the moneyline you are taking is two-way or three-way before betting a game that could plausibly tie.
The archive
What the published price did in the NFL
276 games in the NFL that are over and carried a price when we wrote them up, between November 25, 2025 and November 6, 2026. Each count sits beside what it is out of, and the share is the one divided by the other.
| What | How often | Out of | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| The shorter price won | 155 | 263 | 58.9% |
| The favourite covered the handicap | 117 | 276 | 42.4% |
| The total went over | 143 | 274 | 52.2% |
| The home side won | 134 | 276 | 48.6% |
- Points in a game, on average
- 44.26
- Winning margin, on average
- 11.25
How wide the games were
Over 457 finished games in the NFL with a score — a margin needs no price, so this sample is wider than the one above.
- Half were decided by this or less
- 8
- One in ten by this or more
- 24
- The widest
- 38
How they ended
Over 457 finished games in the NFL whose result line says how it ended — the feed's own one-line verdict, not a reading of the play.
| What | How often | Out of | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Went past regulation | 27 | 457 | 5.9% |
8 games landed exactly on the number — the handicap or the total — so they are in the counts they are out of and in neither result.
The prices counted here are DraftKings', as they stood when we last wrote each game up — one snapshot per game, near kick-off for almost all of them, and never a closing line. So this says what the published line did, not how it moved on the way there.
A season that happened. Nothing here predicts the next game, and none of it is advice.
Counted November 6, 2026.
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